Ivories
by toSempiternity
Summary: And Elsa was indeed exactly like the piano music she played: deceptively simple on the outside, but an absolute enigma beneath the surface. / au :: ConcertPianist!Elsa, Violinist!Anna :: elsanna
1. prologue

**Author's Note** / I'm reading over my old material and my eyes are bleeding and I'm asking myself if I was really that stupid way back then...

ANYWAY.

I've jumped into the Frozen bandwagon, because _Elsa_. Okay? No other explanation is needed. *sobs quietly*

* * *

**Ivories**

* * *

_and elsa was indeed exactly like the piano music she played: deceptively simple on the outside, but an absolute enigma beneath the surface._

* * *

[**prologue**]

Arendelle was one of those places that cartographers would likely forget to put on the world map. While the European country was extremely rich in its history—it included, after all, some crazy queen (whose name was long lost to time) that had creepy ice powers and set off an eternal winter in the kingdom—its modern counterpart would be classified as anything but "remotely interesting."

Anna could swear that time had stopped in the dreary capital city that was Evigvinter (it was named in some awkward kind of homage to the aforementioned eternal winter, and quite possibly the most unimaginative capital city name there was in the big and wide world), where she lived, because every single day was so mundane and set and simply _predictable._ Anna herself was much more of a spontaneous kind of girl, prone to rambling as well as giving in to whatever demand that was tossed at her if chocolate was involved in some way, shape, or form.

The country was also laughably _tiny,_ measuring only perhaps a few square miles larger than the United States' Rhode Island. One of those small kingdoms back in the Medieval Ages, Arendelle's small stature had evidently carried through into the modern times, until it was pretty much only a speck of land compared to neighboring Norway. It didn't help that the Norwegians were terribly snobby about it, too.

Really, it wasn't the size, or the regularity, or even the sheer _boringness_ of Arendelle that, if Anna had a choice, she would hightail out of the country as soon as she could. For all its shortcomings, Arendelle actually had a very nice performing arts university; one of the best and most highly selective in the world, if its boasts were to be taken as true, and Anna was indeed hoping to get into the Arendelle Institute of Performing Arts for the violin.

But then, she'd have to contend with the whispers. The conversations. The gossip. And it was always centered around the same person.

Always.

Elsa._ Fucking. _Vinters.

Indeed, there were _always_ conversations about Arendelle's golden girl. Anna couldn't go two steps without hearing about her: the world-famous concert pianist, rose from humble beginnings _"right here in Arendelle!"_; hailed as the most promising young artist of the age; one of the youngest contenders in this year's International Tchaikovsky Competition.

Oh, Anna was absolutely _sick_ of hearing about Elsa Vinters. Arendelle's apparent claim to fame, treated as one would probably act in front of fucking _royalty,_ even earning herself the name of "Ice Queen." As far as Anna could tell with her limited knowledge on the pianist, Vinters was some tight-assed diva bitch who had about the emotional range of a teaspoon—never once had Anna seen Vinters crack a smile or even a frown when not performing, and Arendelle's limited set of TV channels seemed intent on competing amongst each other to see who could possibly give Vinters the most screen time—and that she rarely ever granted interviews, or something along those lines.

Yet she was still talked about as if she was the gods' own savior to men. Vinters was practically revered as a goddess in Arendelle, in every single respect but name.

Marshall (more commonly known as Marshmallow), Anna's brother, was an insufferable fanboy.

"She can't have an emotional range of a teaspoon," he had said, quite befuddled when Anna had expressed her vehement opinion of Vinters to him one day, almost smashing her beloved eight-thousand-euros violin against the wall in her adamant insistence of Vinters' idiocy, "have you ever seen her perform on stage?"

"Of course I did," Anna scoffed. "She's as stiff as a board."

The blatant truth was that Anna hadn't collectively seen more than ten minutes of Vinters playing in her element, but that was a mere technicality and technicalities weren't supposed to matter at all.

After a moment of disbelieving silence, Marshall barked out a laugh. "The fact that you say that shows that you've not," he said. He began to get misty-eyed. "Her playing...it has so much..._emotion._ I mean, have you ever _heard_ her rendition of Rachmaninoff's prelude in C-sharp minor?"

"Can't say I have," Anna said airily, brandishing her bow around before slamming it down angrily onto her strings and producing a god-awful tone as a result. "Whatever, it doesn't matter."

Marshall rolled his eyes at her in a _"holier-than-thou"_ attitude and promptly walked out of the room.

Anna's practicing that night was the worst it had been in about six months.

—

Apparently, Anna had laid hands on her first violin when she was only three, and then she and the instrument had been inseparable ever since.

There was simply something that was so wonderfully _intimate_ about this stringed instrument that immediately appealed to Anna, that coming out of a keyboard the sound would be impossible to produce. Anna didn't quite scorn the piano (although whether this was truly her own prejudice or one birthed from her irritation against Vinters, she couldn't make the distinction), but she had no desire to have anything to do with it, either; she preferred to stick with her trusty violin in her hand.

She practiced whenever she could: as far into the night as possible without her parents or Marshall shouting at her to stop playing at around two in the morning. Hand shivering, adding a small swell to the note with a wide and warm vibrato. Practiced until her left fingers bled, her hand curling up the delicate swoops and curves of the varnished instrument and then back down again. Right wrist rising in synchronization with her up and down bows.

It wasn't simple. It wasn't stilted. It was _just right._

It was natural. Anna was a voracious speaker even in the worst of times, and they said that the violin was the closest instrument there was that mimicked a human voice. In the rare times when Anna could not express herself with words, she'd be able to talk through the sound of the violin.

And to her, _that_ was extraordinary. Wonderful.

Something ethereal.

Something beautiful.

—

The world ended on a Thursday.

Anna remembered this very clearly, because she had practically hit the woman in the pelvis with the end of her violin case, something that was undesirable in the best of times, but Anna had been seeing flyers and advertisements popping up all around town for the whole week, cheerfully announcing the _arrival_ of this particular human being into Arendelle for a mini-good-luck-on-your-upcoming-competition-homecoming-celebratory-party concert.

And so, Anna would forever remain guilty of the fact that she had once almost smashed a violin case into Elsa Vinters' crotch.

"Wait," Marshall said.

They were eating a light lunch that consisted of sandwiches and a salad. Anna was attacking her food with a vigor whose likes would probably never be seen again in ten millennia, while a piece of lettuce pathetically dangled off of the ends of Marshall's fork.

"You're telling me that you _banged_ into Elsa Vinters—"

"—well, yeah, I'm actually very proud of the fact—"

"—almost broke her _pelvis_—"

"—you're not insinuating anything, are you?—"

"—oh my god—"

"—it was an _accident_—"

"—Jesus Christ, Anna—"

"—I said I was sorry!—"

"—if _anyone _ever asks, you and I are not related—"

"—you're making a fucking mountain out of a molehill here—"

"—out of _all the places to hit_—"

Anna stabbed at her salad with such ferocity that the whole tin bowl upended and sent the contents flying into Marshall's face.

"...Oops."

_"Anna!"_ her mother's voice called from the sitting room. There was the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps, and then Idun came bursting in, her slightly lined face alight with victory as she waved four strips of cardstock around in the air.

"I got tickets!" she exclaimed excitedly. "From the workplace!"

Their mother worked at the music hall in the center of Evigvinter, which doubled as a theatre sometimes.

"Tickets to what?" Marshall asked curiously.

Anna froze, her sandwich halfway to her mouth.

_Oh, gods, please no._

The gods did not take pity upon Anna.

"Elsa Vinters' concert, what else?"

Right after her proclamation, there was a dull thud and a muffled shriek as Anna's head cracked against the dining room table:

_"...Why."_

* * *

**End Notes** / huhuhu, Harry Potter references ^^


	2. sonata pathétique

_6/10/14_

* * *

**Ivories**

* * *

_part one_  
serendipity

* * *

_—extra dimension of expression and emotion which strikes the heart_—

* * *

[**chapter one** / sonata pathétique]

Eric Vinters was by no means a monster.

He had only ever wished for the best for his daughter, he really had. House Vinters was rich, extraordinarily so, although Eric and Maria had made it a point to never flaunt around their wealth. But Eric had access to a vast pool of assets, and what would he do with it if he did not spend it for his daughter's benefit?

So, he reasoned, so what if he didn't tell Elsa about the monetary nudges he gave the judges during her first few competitions? It was for her own good.

It didn't matter.

Nothing mattered, but for his daughter's success. The world of music was a competitive and difficult career path, and Eric would be damned if he didn't _help_ Elsa achieve the enormous potential he knew she possessed.

So he taunted. He shouted. He taught.

He loved.

—

She shouldn't be having so much trouble with this piece.

She shouldn't be struggling with it, period: Beethoven's Sonata Pathétique___,_ a song that packed a very sentimental punch with it, a song she counted among one of her personal favorites and one that she could play since she was ten.

The last song her mother had ever taught her.

She had been up since five in the morning, rehearsing this particular song, because she just _wasn't getting it_ today. It was enough to cause her to want to tear at her hair in frustration—slam her palms down onto the Steinway grand's keyboard, let loose a scream that had lain curdling in her gut for over an hour by this point.

This rehearsal, it had become so _mundane._ It followed a never-ending cycle: she played, she was criticized, she was told to play again.

_Stop._

_Play._

_Repeat._

"You were rushing again, Elsa."

His voice cut through the air like a white-hot switchblade, rupturing the concentration of the pianist and slashing through the train of melody. A set of chords broke off into a discordant jumble of notes as the classically beautiful blonde woman seated in front of the grand piano peeled her fingers away from the white and black keys, slowly sliding them off the lacquered wood even as her head dropped into her hands.

She stayed that way for a few more moments before heaving a deep sigh, forcing herself to look back up into the cold and unforgiving eyes of her teacher. Her piano maestro.

_Father._

"...I," she said, "...yes. Okay."

There was a very frosty and very unforgiving pause. Elsa flinched under a steely gray glare.

"Ah, I mean...yes, Father. I know now."

"That last run was all speed," her father growled, leaning over the keyboard as if to intimidate her further—_and if that was his intention,_ Elsa meekly thought, _he very well succeeded in it—_"there was absolutely no musical element to it; your playing was completely flat. You weren't counting correctly between the chords during all three of the _Grave_s, and your technique suffered as well. Your right hand consistently came in before the downbeat and your left was uneven. You sounded like you were simply in a _rush_ to get the movement over with."

Elsa was silent.

He didn't take his eyes from off her—cold orbs of lifeless stone, they were:

"Your concert is in a day," he flatly reminded her, as if she needed any reminding. "And there will be _no_ mistakes. No slip-ups. Clean...as always."

And Elsa nodded robotically. She turned her hands onto the piano keyboard once more, already knowing what her father would say even before the word came out of his mouth.

_"Again,"_ he said, turning his back on her.

So Elsa played.

_Stop._

_Play._

_Repeat._

And she had barely played five measures when her father cut her off again.

"This is useless," he flatly said. _"You_ are useless." His words tore into her, white-hot knives pressed against her flesh and bone. "Get off the piano. Take the score and study it, and so gods help me, get out of my sight until you can play the damn song without stumbling every two notes you play."

Elsa took the score in silence and left the room.

—

She had her own preferences with music, of course. Beethoven's music had its virtues, truly, but she wasn't quite obsessed.

She thought Mendelssohn was the tiniest bit too superficial. Technically difficult; yet musically, his pieces were almost _childish. _Bach was a bit too dry for her taste and for whatever reason, she absolutely despised Mozart. Perhaps it was his sheer ubiquity, but she was borderline indifferent toward his music. Liszt's impromptus had a special place in her heart, Prokofiev she enjoyed when she wanted something a bit more on the _wild_ side, and Beethoven was simply fantastic.

They had begun to call her, though, a Rachmaninoff specialist.

If Elsa could have married music, she would have married Rachmaninoff's in a heartbeat. He did tend to have some similar-sounding works, quite a few smashing chords, but Elsa loved the raw emotion behind them. It was almost like taking a look into either the darkest or most beautiful corners of the very human soul. Playing Rachmaninoff was the closest time she had ever come to wearing her heart on her sleeve. She had done a master class once, only about three months ago, when she had just turned seventeen (some of her "students" were older than her and it made Elsa feel terribly self-conscious) and played his Prelude in C-sharp minor as an introductory piece. She had recorded his sets of _Morceaux de fantaisie_ and the _Preludes_ in _Ops.__ 23_ and _32_ with her record label, which upon its release was received with very positive reviews from music critics all around.

Elsa thought that he was simply so pure. He was so raw, and so open. The music, it could be angry. It could be desperate. It explored all the darkest corners of the soul, and not necessarily, well, _angst_ either. His music was all the things Elsa could never hope to be, but she could sure as hell try.

She played him sometimes, in the dead of the night, in a pitch black piano room where she couldn't she her fingers and couldn't see the keys. She played him when she needed to unwind, she played him when she needed to lay bare her emotions if but for a moment, with nothing but the night as her witness. She played him when she needed to cry after a particularly taxing day—_because you need not to cry, you do not need to let them know,_ her father always dictated, _but you still must_ feel _it, and _you _need to make your audience cry. You must not conceal, and you need to feel yourself, internally_—where there was absolutely nothing judging her when tears splashed across her hands.

Yes, Rachmaninoff was good, Rachmaninoff was like water, it was _life—_

(Although it must have said something that she didn't play Rachmaninoff after she opened her guarded little heart to the only person she ever loved outside her family, after that girl took it and broke it apart in front of Elsa's own eyes.)

—

It was around three minutes to one o'clock when Elsa stepped out into the open air, a very welcome reprieve from the downright oppressive stuffiness of the concert hall, and her stomach was not in the best of moods.

She was _hungry._

Her stomach gurgled its plaintive affirmation.

"...Shut up," she moaned pitifully to the rebellious organ.

_Oh dear, what was it again? The first sign of insanity is...talking to yourself?_

In her most flimsy defense, she was so burned out and miserable and distracted and still had her nose half-stuck in the stupid Beethoven sonata score that she didn't even notice the the poor member of the human race she had essentially walked right into, and also didn't notice the end of a large, felt-colored rectangular box almost wrecking her nether regions until around five seconds later, when said redhead was already in full ramble mode, apologies pouring out of her mouth like she was a human fountain that spewed out muddled-together words.

_"—OhmygoshI'msosorrydidIhurtyou?!"_

Elsa was sure that she instantaneously turned a bright shade of red that could have rivaled the profusely apologizing girl's hair. If Elsa had had a tomato for a mother, it would have been inordinately proud.

As it was, Elsa responded with the most intelligent word (or letter) she could formulate in her mind at the moment.

_"I."_

"No, no, no; _I'm_ _sorry,_ did I hit you—ah, excuse me—_there?"_

"Uh..."

_Shut up, Elsa._

"Well, no." (Her upper left thigh painfully throbbed in protest.)

_Shut up, Elsa._

"I mean...yeah, no."

_Jesus Christ, Elsa, you dense idiot._

The redhead was picking up her case, which she had dropped noisily onto the cobbled street in the former confusion. Elsa now identified it as one that probably held either a violin or a viola. It was well-worn, indicating abundant use; it had a flap of black fabric hanging off from its belly that lazily waved around in the brisk wind.

The redhead was still apologizing when she looked up at Elsa's face, which was still uncannily similar to the color of an overripe strawberry; she blinked, and then her posture stiffened. Her former smile abruptly slid right off her face like oil set on water, only to be replaced by an oddly blank expression for a few moments; then the redhead hitched it right back on and continued smiling, although it was now passive.

Elsa froze too.

_Shit. Shit, shit, shitty shit. What did you do?_

"Alright, then," the redhead said, and her voice was almost forcibly cheerful now as she turned around, now appearing to make every effort to not look at the blonde in the eye. "I...well, uh, sorry for bumping into you."

"You didn't—no, I, um...you didn't bump into me. I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention, I bumped...into you..."

The redhead whirled around and said, almost in an accusatory tone of voice, "You're Elsa Vinters, aren't you?"

"Yes," Elsa said, still confused by the girl's slight vehemence. "I am..."

Her last words tapered off into an awkward silence as the girl gave a single, brusque nod of her head and walked quickly away.

Elsa buried her head in her hands and was very aware of the fact that the tips of her ears still felt like they had taken an impromptu vacation to the Sahara Desert and were now having fun being scorched off by the sun.

_...Socially awkward freak,_ the voices murmured in her mind.

—

It was after her mother died when Elsa's life took a turn for the worse.

Well, not necessarily _worse._ But much more demanding. Much more taxing, and certainly less fun.

Maria Vinters was a bright soul, one of those rare people whose default facial expression was a brilliant and sincere smile. She was a gifted musician as well, at the same time managing to remain intellectual as well as emotional with each and every piece that was placed in front of her. Rumor had it that she was descended down from the old Arendelle royal line, the line that included Queen Aren the Founder-of-Arendelle-And-The-Very-First-In-A-Long-String-of-Aren's and King Edgar the Drunk Who Drove The Country Into Bankruptcy and that so-called ice queen who froze Arendelle in an eternal winter. (Elsa didn't like to hold very much by the last monarch; she was quite aware of what the media called her in newspapers.)

At least, that's what her history books said. Elsa didn't very much like history. Too many important figures and revolts trapped in dusty thick tomes, and those political ideas like _capitalism_ and _nationalism_ and _manoral__ism_that all blended together into one confusing ideology whenever she read about that. Music was much easier to memorize than old facts about founders of countries and ice witches.

_And much more useful._

Her mother and father, apparently, had met at the Arendelle Institute of Performing Arts when they were twenty-one, had that cheesy moment when they looked into each other's eyes and realized that they had found their one true love, married, had sex, and then _boom,_ baby Elsa popped out screaming on the twenty-first of December. At least, that's how Elsa thought of it. That's how she preferred to think of it. She didn't care for the sordid details of her parents' personal life and she still wasn't quite sure if the creature she called her father nowadays was even capable of love anymore.

He hadn't always been so hard, hadn't always been so cold. It was like something shut down in him after Elsa's mother passed away, and he began to push Elsa toward playing the piano full time, playing it for her profession. And Elsa loved music, she loved the piano. She didn't complain. She didn't find fault with the fact that her father was pushing her to extremes that no ten-year-old should have to endure, but she what she did find fault with was his methods.

He withdrew her from public school and the public eye, for one. Kai was the portly old man whom her father hired as Elsa's private tutor, and he was certainly nice enough—at least, he allowed Elsa to scurry to the kitchens and nick chocolate whenever it had pleased her to do so. Father also dragged her through four grueling hours of practice a day, and then five the next year, and then six, and then seven, until she took three-quarters of a year off to finish the necessary credits for her high school diploma when most normal children would have still been in middle school. She didn't even realize she had missed practically the entirety of her late childhood until it was too late, until it had already became all about piano.

Then she entered that time period when she couldn't decide if she loved Daddy or hated him and she won her first junior competition. One victory became two and then four and suddenly she had been propelled into overnight Arendellian fame (which really wasn't saying much) when she won the Minnesota International Piano-e-Competition at fourteen-and-a-half years of age and completely upset the favorite hailing from Denmark, some Hans Westergaard or something. Elsa remembered thinking at the time that Hans's last name was funny.

She continued to attend several small-scale competitions, most of them international, and her first big break came when some big-name music critic from the highly influential _New York Times_ happened to stumble in onto her playing at the Steinway Hall in New York City as prep for an upcoming recital in Carnegie Hall, and called her performance of Chopin's waltz in E-flat minor "one of the the most heart-wrenching renditions of the piece he had ever heard." Then she was invited to play for the new President of the United States of America at the White House. And it was a year and a few months later when the record labels came a-calling. And then Elsa's time began to go down a metaphorical drain. _Practice, practice, practice. _That's all she knew and it was all she did. Elsa groaned every time she thought about it.

_What higher being ever decided to be so fucking evil and give us only twenty-four hours in a day..._

—

When she came back to the piano hall, her father asked her if she had studied the score. Elsa thought about the redhead she had apparently insulted, the delicious roast beef sandwich she had enjoyed near the fountain in the center of Evigvinter's city square, and the score she had decidedly _not_ looked at.

She lied through her teeth, answered in the affirmative to her father's inquiry, and played, flawlessly.

Apparently satisfied, her father left her to her own devices for the rest of the day and retired back to their rented apartment to do who knows what. Elsa had long since resigned herself to the fact that her father stayed up until about three in the morning, by her calculations, running calls and clicking madly away on his laptop. Sometimes, on a particularly restless night, she would merely lie in her bed and count the cracks in her ceiling while listening to the soft _tap-tap_ of her father, clicking away on the computer's keyboard.

And when the door closed behind him, Elsa shook out her wrists, put her fingers across the glossy white-and-black keys, and played Rachmaninoff.

—

Anna was not having a good week.

There was that whole fiasco with running into the world-famous pianist Elsa Vinters in the most embarrassing and painful way possible, and honestly, Anna didn't quite know what to make of that woman now that she had become "personally acquainted" with her. She was really nothing short of socially awkward. She practically strung words together in a stammer, fingers worrying against themselves so much that Anna was positively sure they would fall off, and the blonde had absolutely _refused_ to meet Anna's inquisitive gaze.

She didn't think too much on that though, when Mother informed her that it would be absolutely mandatory for Anna to attend the concert, because did Anna know how _hard_ it was the get the tickets and she should really have more _appreciation_ for one of the best young musicians of the age and for piano in general, which only reinvigorated Anna's slightly tempered annoyance at the gushing praise Vinters seemed to trail regardless of whether she was doing anything wonderful or not.

Unfortunately at the moment, she was quite occupied with other, more severe, un-Vinters-related problems that she had just been brought to realize by her academic dean:

_"Are you telling me I'm _failing_ Astrophysics?!"  
_

Anna was very close to hyperventilating. It was practically the end of the third semester; she knew she hadn't been doing quite as well as she probably should have in her chosen science course, but she didn't think she was doing so badly as to the point of failing, and thus had never really bothered to check her grades on the iCampus portal.

Dean Arnbjørg pinched the bridge of her nose, counted to five, and tried very hard not to scream.

The fifty-seven-year-old couldn't deal with the raging redhead at the moment, she really couldn't. She had already had a rough day before her, having had to break up an outright fistfight between a few high school freshman who decided that they did not want to resolve an issue over _who was copying who's biology homework_ in a civilized manner and a drop screen falling onstage during the sophomores' orchestral concert rehearsal while the viola section leader (who was very well known for overreacting when someone so much as even _touched_ his very expensive and very precious instrument) was passively eating his raisins.

"Yes, Miss Engström, you are currently failing Astrophysics," Dean Arnbjørg said quite plainly. "I believe you are currently scraping a...sixty-two overall average in the class?"

Anna was very, very close to having a coronary and dropping dead from heart problems right there and then, onto the ugly brown-carpeted floor that blanketed the ground of the academic dean's office like a shaggy, mangy bear pelt.

_Oh, dear gods, please, please, _please_ tell me I'm in a fucking nightmare of a dream and I'll wake up soon. In a very comfortable bed, where I'm currently not failing one of my core classes, and...and other stuff, like things that_don't _involve me flunking science_—

"Miss Engström, this is not a dream." The dean's irritated voice cut through Anna's hopeful train of thought, and the redhead visibly wilted.

"How'd you know I was thinking that?" Anna near-whined, sinking down further into her chair and burying her head in her hands.

Because the ugly fact remained that she needed to keep her grades up to even be considered for eligibility into the Arendelle Institute of Performing Arts. There was absolutely no fucking way she would be able to get into a prestigious university with a damned _sixty-two_ in Astrophysics, unless she was some sort of Mozart musical prodigy—like maybe Elsa Vinters, and Anna drove the thought quickly out of her mind because _why_ did everything in her life have to revolve back in some way to the darn concert pianist?—which, for all her practicing and as much as she begged and prayed and hoped to whatever higher beings there were above, she was decidedly not.

"...Miss Engström, look at me."

Anna let out a disgruntled noise that was halfway between a sob and a groan before she looked.

The dean's voice was softer now, "Listen, Miss Engström, I know how much getting into the Institute means to you, but you _do_ know that you will need to pull up your Astrophysics grade to at least a ninety."

"That's a _twenty-eight_ point difference," said Anna despondently, because for all it was worth she had a quick mind when it came to simple mental math. "Dean Arnbjørg, I've got literally, like...a little over two months left before graduation. How in the _world_ am I supposed to pull it up thirty-eight points?"

"I'm sure that the professor is open to giving you extra credit work," the dean suggested. "In the meantime, I suggest that you start getting those other small grades up. Tests, quizzes, projects, homework...and all the like. Yes?"

Anna managed to crack a weak smile. "Um, yeah," she quietly said, moving to stand, "thanks."

She hefted her violin case up, which was sitting peacefully at the doorway, and exited the dean's office.

_Oh, good gods, I am so _fucking_ screwed._

* * *

**End Notes** / _Why hello there character development._ I apologize if it was horribly boring to suffer through, but it's necessary. And Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 is boss, and I recommend you listen to it ^^

Sorry for the late update. Had Bio SATs and AP World History DBQ and...oh, how ironic, a piano competition. That I completely bombed *_* We'll get back to more Anna next time. Thanks for the favs, follows, and reviews; you guys fucking rock.


	3. fantaisie-impromptu

_6/12/14_

* * *

**Ivories**

* * *

_part one_  
serendipity

* * *

_—only instance where one genius discloses to us...what is heard in the work of another_—

* * *

[**chapter two** / fantaisie-impromptu]

Elsa had never quite understood the allure of roller coasters.

She'd end up sitting in a tiny car that would be enough to make a claustrophobic scream, with a very uncomfortable metal bar shoved flat against her hips that may or may not fail at any given point in the ride and send her hurtling to the ground up from a hundred feet in the air. There was also the matter of upset stomachs, an issue that she only knew too well of. The last time she had gone on a roller coaster was in Hershey Park, in America's Pennsylvania. She went with her cousin Rapunzel and her boyfriend, Flynn—both of whom lived in the Keystone State—and said boyfriend had lost it halfway through Fahrenheit on one of those upside-down loops. Rapunzel was laughing her head off while simultaneously screaming and Elsa was feeling quite sympathetic toward poor old Aunt Agnes when a dangerous projectile, otherwise known as cotton-candy-colored puke, made a beeline to land on her shoes.

It was truly the feeling of her stomach rebelling and apparently trying to force itself up her esophagus that she hated, and Elsa stopped going onto roller coasters after she began to regularly attend competitions. Certainly, it was partially due to lack of time, and she rarely ever saw Rapunzel or Flynn nowadays. But she also didn't want to experience that feeling more than she had to, because it hit her every _damn_ time without fail before some big event she would be required to play at—such as this moment. She thought that she'd be able to conquer the fear over time, but evidently, it'd never gone away.

So she turned to medication. Her father had suggested it at first, but he thought now that she had long since gone off of them. Elsa didn't tell her father about the bitter, orange, stupid, hexagonal shaped pills she was still taking. She usually took one of them before a performance, and struggled to choke the vile thing down with water. It was revolting and embarrassing and quite frankly, she felt a little ashamed for taking them—honestly, how many concert pianists were there who took anti-anxiety pills before a performance? _(__Oh, t__hat's right, none)_—but after that enormous _fiasco_ in her first big concert performance, she didn't want to take any risks.

She had been twelve, winner of her division on some small-scale England competition, and was playing Copland's _Cat and the Mouse_. It was quite the speedy piece; her fingers practically dashed themselves across the keys whenever she played it. It had been based upon some French author's fable, _Le vieux chat et la jeune souris_, and always brought into her mind those two cartoon characters Tom and Jerry.

This particular performance, it had started out well enough, until she hit the wrong note, somewhere in the sixth measure.

Elsa hated hitting wrong notes.

_Everyone_ hated hitting wrong notes; especially during such an imperative concert, she was sure. But she, in particular, grew extremely flustered by her slipping fingers. Once she made a mistake, she tended to make another, and then another, and soon an unstoppable string of fumbled notes and stilted rhythms would begin to emerge in her playing. It happened no matter how hard she struggled to gather herself together again, no matter how hard she concentrated. And it frustrated her to no end.

It was only human nature, she tried to reason with herself (and failed miserably at that), that once she made a mistake she would be somewhat distracted by it for the rest of the piece. Her trouble with piano performance laid not in her technical aptitude, nor her musicality—in fact, this was what she considered was her greatest strength—but it was in her embarrassing, absolute incompetence to control her _nerves_ onstage without backhand assistance.

Every time she thought she had her nerves under control while she was prepping backstage, they returned with a roaring vengeance as soon as she trotted out into the spotlight. She'd be brilliant for about the five seconds she hitched a demure, practiced smile onto her face, bowed, walked to the piano, and put her hands on the keys—and then maybe she wouldn't mess up until halfway through the piece, but maybe she'd mess up on the first measure. It haunted her every touch, every breath; she knew that she should not be concentrating on worrying over whether she would make a mistake or not, but simply on every measure, every note and telling herself—_knowing_—that she would not screw herself over. Alas, her thoughts drifted to that every single darn time, and it was becoming quite a major problem. Her father was beyond furious, he was besides himself—and he knew perfectly well what was troubling Elsa so greatly during the concerts, but for all his pushing and shoving and shouting, he couldn't change Elsa's most primal, basic worries and fears. All he could do was reiterate again and again what Elsa already knew—_while performing, __do not worry about making a mistake, and if you do, simply move on past it_—and hope that something would just click into place.

And for a while, it never did. She started fretting, started losing interest in the piano. Started growing disenchanted. She _couldn't_ love what she was doing when she made mistakes whenever she performed in public, it just couldn't happen. She _couldn't_ love what she was doing if she screwed herself over half the time she played. Elsa hated the feeling, but it was becoming rooted inside her core, a malign parasite sucking her dry of all the passion she used to have for the piano.

The doctor prescribed her medication a mere two weeks after the disaster with _Cat and the Mouse,_ and Elsa suspected it was highly due to her father's prodding as well. He told her to take a dose every time before she went out on stage, in hopes that it would calm her down somewhat.

And it did. The pill tempered her fear, if only artificially and temporarily. It reduced the feeling of sharp crystals of ice running through her veins, the poison clutching desperately at her chest, at her heart.

But however much relief it brought, Elsa was still slightly ashamed to have taken it. It didn't matter she had been on the medication for almost six years and counting now—gods only knew why Elsa hadn't developed much of a tolerance to the drug already—_but,_ and she always thought to herself on those gray and rainy days, _why do I have to depend on a fucking _pill_ to get me through a concert? Why can't I be like a _normal_ person and learn to control my fear and play just as well as when I am on medication—?_

And the fact remained, that a pill was only a pill. It couldn't bring back the love she had for the piano, the kind she had before her mother died. It couldn't bring back all of her passion for playing, couldn't bring back what had been lost into the void. She wanted to love the piano, wanted to love what she knew she would end up doing for a living—and she did. She did love the piano, but it wasn't as hot of a fire as it was before. Wasn't quite as strong.

Those were the times when Elsa wanted to seize her hair and pull those beautiful white-blonde strands right out of their follicles. Her dependence on a single, tiny orange pill frustrated her to no end. But she knew, resignedly, that she would not be able to perform at her prime without them.

Although that didn't stop her from trying to find another way.

—

Arendelle Concert Hall was about as extravagant as Anna had ever seen it. Midnight-black velvet draperies with flashing golden tassels hung like a funeral shroud in the back, covering the back stage from any prying eyes. The stage itself was made of huge, golden-brown slabs of polished hickory and strangely enough, a base of mottled black granite.

She had only been here once before, for the only competition she had ever attended, and that was when she was nine. Back then, everything had seemed so grand, so beautiful, so _fancy_. Arendelle Hall was as awe-inducing as it ever was, but its beautifully carved arches seemed a bit too over-the-top. The golden lights illuminating the area was too bright, the glass chandelier too...sparkly. Maybe glamorous was the right word. Although, Anna wasn't really upset by that. She liked sparkles.

Mother had apparently managed to secure prime tickets to Elsa Vinters's concert, and they were right up in the second row to the front: Anna's parents, Marshall, and Anna herself. The piano—_a Steinway grand, Model D,_ as Marshall had so kindly informed her, and it was apparently the best piano there was in its class if not the whole world—loomed above them, a great black behemoth of a thing sitting patiently on the stage and simply waiting for someone to start playing upon it.

Anna squirmed uncomfortably in her tiny red chair, wondering if it would have killed the administration to simply have gotten a long line of comfy couches or something instead. This seat was going to bruise her ass beyond repair.

"When is it starting?" she practically whined, wringing her hands on the dark, mahogany armrests as she wriggled around and tried to get in a comfortable position without having to lay sprawled across four seats, which would have ended up with her head on her father's lap and feet in Marshall's nose.

Marshall checked his watch, "It should be any moment now. Be patient, feisty-pants." He grinned at her, showing a mouthful of unusually blocky white teeth.

"How can I be patient for something I was never looking forward to in the first place?" Anna had complained in return, but no one was listening to her. The concert hall was growing steadily darker and Anna was growing steadily more agitated as the main spotlight blinked to life, beaming onto the back of the stage at the velvet black curtains.

Then she glided out, all pale five feet and six inches of her. Anna hadn't really taken notice of it before, but fuck, Elsa Vinters could have passed off as a goddess. Platinum blonde hair tied into an practical yet intricate bun at the back of her head glimmered brightly underneath the reflected fractals of light the glass chandelier threw off in lieu of the overreaching glare of the spotlight. She wore a somewhat conservative black dress that covered her arms up to the wrists, leaving her hands bare. Porcelain features were arranged into what was placid smile, blue eyes glinting curiously in the sharp white light.

_She looks...different,_ she hesitantly acquiesced to herself. _Compared to the last time I saw her...well yeah, it was when I was nine, but...ahh...it's a _good_ different._

Anna clapped, somewhat apathetically, along with the rest of the roaring audience as the concert pianist gave a small bow, resting her left hand on the edge of the piano before sitting smartly down on the bench, flicking out her wrists.

Obviously, Vinters had perfected the art of establishing a strong presence whilst on stage.

_Goddamn. Is everything that woman does so freaking elegant?_

And apparently so, because when the music started, Anna could swear she had just been transported to another fucking world.

According to the paper program in Anna's hands, Vinters was playing a sonata by Beethoven, nicknamed _Pathétique_. Sonata Pathétique's ulterior meaning was apparently meant to affect the emotions of pity, grief or sorrow. And Anna looked up, impressed against her will, as the blonde managed to draw such a sharp contrast between two small parts within the same phrase that it was almost as if there were two different personalities in those separate measures, which Anna figured was what Vinters pretty much wanted them to infer.

She sat there, in slight awe, with her eyes glued to Vinters's fingers as they descended down a chromatic scale at almost breathtaking speed before the blonde launched into what must have been the _Allegro con brio_. Something fantastic, something brilliant—when Vinters reached the part with a staccatoed left hand and the echoing second theme in the right, Anna could only feel like she was hearing how it must have been to...well, flirt with death, almost. Something Anna had never really thought of until now, and she was perfectly content to listen to the musical interpretation of the literal rather than take the idea into reality.

From what Anna could tell, the repertoire was mainly a mix of late Classical and Romantic era musical pieces. Vinters moved on from the Sonata Pathétique to two of Liszt's most famous pieces, the _Liebestraum_ and _Hungarian Rhapsody;_ and then she played her way through Rachmaninoff's entire _Morceaux de fantaisie._ Marshall, Anna noted, looked particularly misty-eyed through the Prelude in C-sharp minor.

Anna was only beginning to come down from her Vinters-induced high—she was almost positive that she hadn't blinked for more than thirty minutes, given the burning in her eyes—when Vinters hit those enormous G-sharp octaves that even Anna recognized began the only piano piece she could listen to on repeat, over and over again. She practically fell out of her seat at the power behind the chords.

_Fantaisie-Impromptu._

—

Reportedly, Chopin had dedicated his Fantaisie-Impromptu a close friend after he wrote it and requested that it not be published.

Chopin, you see, apparently hated the impromptu. Or, at least, strongly disliked it. Elsa was sure that if he could have disowned music, Chopin would have claimed one of his most famous works, at it had turned out, as not his. But it had gotten out and had gotten published, and what else could the Romantic era composer do? In fact, it was supposed to have been burned in a fire. (Evidently, it hadn't.)

Yes, Chopin had disregarded this piece, and so did Elsa, in fact.

It was beautiful—on par with some of her favorite Rachmaninoff works, true—it played like something from another dimension, she thought, which was exactly why she avoided playing it.

Even more so than the Sonata Pathétique, it held too much sentimentality with it to her. For the fact that—no, she hadn't played Rachmaninoff after her whole, carefully-built relationship with the-girl-who-must-not-be-named fell into absolute shambles, she had played the impromptu. It was tied in too closely with some of her darker, broken memories that she kept locked away in some shadowy corner of her mind that she refused to pay any attention to.

Yet the fact remained that the Fantaisie-Impromptu was one of her more celebrated pieces; her interpretation of the piece had been exulted after she played it when she had just turned fifteen. So her father had insisted upon it being included in her repertoire, and like with everything that involved her father's demands, she gave in without arguing.

She never practiced it, though. And Father had never said anything about it. This was the one piece that Elsa was positively _sure_ she would be able to get right, pill or no pill. This was the one piece where she _knew_ she could totally lose herself in, where she knew she could dive into the bars of music that played in her mind, with no mistakes made.

Rachmaninoff's works may have composed her crown, but the Fantaisie-Impromptu, it was undoubtedly the crown jewel. It was her Hope Diamond.

Not that there was much to hope for, when she played it.

—

It was undoubtedly the best interpretation of the dubbed "Fantasy Impromptu" Anna had ever heard. If she had been honest with herself, she'd have said that Elsa Vinters's rendition of the piece was nothing short of heartbreaking.

The beginning, it started off soft, almost _hesitant._ Anna looked closely and she could see that Vinters' eyes had drifted shut, whether of their own accord or on purpose. It began to grow agitated quickly enough, though, with Vinters' pale right fingers darting across the keyboard at almost ungodly speed, yet each not came out as crisp and clear as the evening breeze.

Elsa Vinters, she didn't play the Fantaisie-Impromptu with single-minded desperation, or mere discontent. She didn't play a score, didn't play a story. What she played was pure emotion manifesting itself into strains of melody, and those absolutely _wild_ sixteenth notes coming from Vinters's right hand. The _Largo_ portion of the song was quite tender, yet had also a more melancholy tone running underneath the notes, as if Vinters was attempting to plead for something through the piece.

Anna didn't really know what to make of the end. She couldn't quite tell what was trying to be said through the music—the ending was completed on a major chord, yet there was still something that Anna couldn't pin down, something beneath it that eluded her grasp—

_...U__m...maybe it's __resignation?_

—

The applause was earth-shattering.

Elsa only smiled politely, trying to catch her breath a little, bowed five more times than necessary, was given about ten thousand bouquets of flowers, before she allowed herself to walk across the wooden floor and toward backstage once more, wiping a hand across her brow as she did so.

Her father nodded brusquely, once; his way of stating his nonverbal approval of the performance. and Elsa looked away.

She hoped no one noticed the tear running down her cheek.

—

When Anna was nine, she entered a submission into the Arendellian Protégé Concerto Competition under the suggestion of her then-teacher, a soft-spoken young man barely in his twenties from Denmark named Frederick Westergaard.

What was different about this particular contest, was that all types of instrumentalists could enter. Whether that be piano, flute, violin, clarinet—anything, really—they were all eligible. Five different age groups, consisting of ten and under, eleven to fourteen, fifteen to eighteen, college students, and professionals. It was supposed to be specifically geared toward concertos, this competition, and Anna had nicely polished up one of Vivaldi's in A minor. Her teacher had even smiled at her during the last practice run they had; Frederick Westergaard's smiles came rarely, but when they did, they were sure and warm and genuine, and Anna absolutely adored them.

"I have a little brother, who is around the same age as you," Frederick had told her one day after practice. They were sitting at his table, as Anna's parents hadn't arrived to pick her up yet and Frederick had offered her some hot chocolate. How could Anna have refused?—hot chocolate was simply divine.

_"Urnngh,"_ Anna mumbled intelligently around a mouthful of sweet, creamy liquid.

Frederick sipped his own drink thoughtfully, peering at Anna with honest green eyes from over the rim of his ceramic cup. "Yes," he said cryptically, "he plays the piano, yet you remind me of him, sometimes." He allowed a gentle smile, "I believe that it is your pure enthusiasm for what you do—your strong and untainted love for music. Both you and him have that mindset. And that"—he reached over and tapped Anna's nose playfully—"is what distinguishes a true musician from merely a player. Finding the simple joy in what you are doing at any given moment...now _that_ is something that cannot be taught, something that cannot be learned. You should not be playing the violin, playing any instrument for that matter, for the merely sake of playing it, because you are forced to do it. For the sake of entering competitions and _winning_—you should play an instrument, because you enjoy playing it." He shrugged, the brightness in his eyes growing a bit dimmer. "A sentiment that many people do not appear to hold, these days..."

Anna's mother had rang the doorbell after that.

Honestly, Anna hadn't really understood what Frederick meant by what he had told her, not until long after he had left Evigvinter (and Arendelle, altogether) suddenly and without warning, but she would slowly grow to appreciate his words.

In any case, Anna entered her first live performance bouncing up and down and grinning as toothily as she could to the four severe-looking judges who were sitting stoically in front of the stage.

And she set her bow on the strings, and she played. Articulate notes, as best of a vibrato as she could manage with her little hands, with a clear and crisp tone. Straight posture, a loose and flexible wrist. She pulled the bow across the violin, matching note for note, stroke for stroke. Alright, so she made a little slip here, shifted half a step lower there. She didn't care. It didn't matter, right here, at this very moment. She loved what she was playing, loved what she was doing: doing what she did the best. Lending herself over to the sound of the violin. Her violin, it was no longer just an instrument, but also a medium between herself and the music, the concerto—just something used to help convey the essence of who she was with the music she played.

The moment her last note rang out through the hall, she was absolutely sure that she had done the best job out of all the contestants who went before her. The roars and groundshaking applause of the audience confirmed that much. There was only one more contender, some pianist girl, who would be performing after her, but Anna was not too worried. As far as she was concerned (and indeed, she was biased), she had just done a bloody brilliant job and she was quite content with how her performance had turned out.

And after that girl had finished, some ten-year-old blonde whose name Anna had missed—Elise, or something?—she was more than sure she had secured herself the first place in her age group. The girl had been good—crazy good, Anna granted her that—but she had made one major error somewhere around the halfway mark of her piece and ended up stumbling back to the beginning of the phrase to correct her mistake.

Going back in music simply for a few incorrectly played notes one made was an enormous no-no.

So when they announced the honorable mention in her age group, and it wasn't Anna, she was happy. When they announced third place, and it wasn't Anna, she was happy.

And then they were announcing second place and they were calling the name _Anna Engström,_ and Anna had about five seconds to hitch her jaw back up onto her face before she stumbled from her seat and accepted her certificate and two-hundred-fifty-euro prize with good grace.

And that Elise girl received the grand prize.

Anna had just gotten snubbed, she was sure.

Her small fingers fisted themselves tightly in her lap even as she gazed up at the podium, up at the little blonde smiling in such a bashfully gorgeous way at the crowd that her grin should have been illegal, receiving her certificate and flowers and check.

_Elsa Vinters,_ they called the blonde. Anna's teal eyes never left the girl's back even as she made her way back to her seat, sitting straight up; prim and proper as a victor should sit. The girl's icy blue eyes caught Anna's for a moment, and the small redhead thought she saw a flash of surprise and almost _guilt_ cross across those ethereal azure irises.

Then Elsa turned her head away and didn't look back again.

_Stupid. Elsa. Vinters._

She could hear Frederick's voice in her head, that attending this competition was not really about winning, but about the learning experience. But Anna knew that she had done better than this Elsa girl. She deserved what the blonde had gotten. It was a constant in an ever-changing equation. It was a fact. That look the blonde had shot Anna, the redhead knew that _she_ knew it, too._  
_

Anna looked down at her lap, and while her nine-year-old mind still couldn't _quite_ pin down the whole concept yet, she couldn't shake off the feeling that she had been absolutely, undeniably cheated.

—

When Anna ran into Elsa that day with her violin case, it was clear that the blue-eyed blonde beauty didn't remember her. Didn't remember the redhead who she had given a small grimace at when she was ten; didn't remember Anna, the-girl-who-should-have-won-first-place-in-that-one-competition-_waaay_-back-in-the-day. And why would she have any reason to? Anna was undoubtedly just another contestant whom Elsa had beaten out in another competition, whether it be fair and square (or not).

And Anna told herself it was probably for the better, anyway.

Whatever she told herself, though, there was some gnarled place in her heart that remained discontent. Violated. Still snubbed. Still cheated.

It still stung.

* * *

**End Notes** / So we got some Anna backstory here. And oh, god, thank you so much for all your love for the story :') A fast update, then, to make up for the wait that'll probably be with the next chapter. Hopefully I haven't bored you guys to death yet with all this musical stuff being sprouted #_# Just trying to introduce the character in a different way. The exposition is almost over. Well, I think it is ^^' Also, Anna's only about a year younger than Elsa here.


	4. sophisticated grace

_7/9/14_

* * *

**Ivories**

* * *

_part one_  
serendipity

* * *

_—for the first time in forever, there'll be music, there'll be light__—_

* * *

[**chapter three** / sophisticated grace]

_I'm going to be late, I'm going to be late____—where the hell did I put my jacket?____—_oh shit, I'm going to be late_—_

Or, so were Anna's thoughts as she hightailed out of her house at six-forty-two in the morning, half of a bagel clutched in her hand, with a coat she had (attempted to) thrust hastily on flapping pathetically off her right arm. She all but careened into her used, crackpot old hunk of metal she had the misfortune to call a car, an ages-old tan '95 Toyota Camry that she half expected to break down into several rusted pieces any day now.

Muttering a stream of curses underneath her breath, she jammed the keys into the ignition, violently twisting it to the left. The last thing Anna needed was to be late to school, on top of all her other problems with her fucking Astrophysics grade (she still had yet to talk to the teacher to ask if she would offer extra credit, or find a tutor for that matter) being three points below what was considered passable. The Camry spluttered to life, wheezing puffs of light gray exhaust into the still spring air while Anna aggressively backed the poor thing out of the driveway before shooting down the road as fast as she could force the junky automobile to go.

The dreary gray pall of the clouds hanging overhead matched her mood exactly, and it only further soured when she hit a string of red lights. She tapped her fingers against the wheel impatiently, staring at the digital clock on the dashboard all the while, as if by imposing her will upon it she could make time freeze in its tracks until she finally made it to the damned school.

At six-fifty-eight and with two minutes to spare, Anna finally screeched into the parking lot of Evigvinter High School, scrabbling distractedly to unfasten her seatbelt and stuffing what remained of her bagel into her mouth. Yanking the car keys out, she unceremoniously shoved them into the pocket of her still-half-put-on jacket and half-tripped, half-sprinted to the school's main entrance, her wildly out of control backpack almost hitting a security guard in the face.

"Sorry!" Anna shouted, hastily allowing herself to glance back at any collateral damage she may had caused inadvertently. The guard grumbled but shook his head wearily, leaving Anna to dash down the halls as fast as her legs could carry her to first-period Independent Writing Honors.

Anna was not the best at academics, if she was totally honest with herself. The only things she actually excelled in were, well, Orchestra and AP Music Theory, and she doubted the former subject counted as hard academics. It didn't help that she absolutely sucked at the Independent Writing course, which she wryly guessed were where she probably scored her worst grades after Astrophysics.

Mrs. Gerda, the rather plump teacher of the class, thankfully didn't comment on Anna's bulging cheeks (unfortunately, she was still vigorously chewing on her bagel and trying her damned hardest not to choke), nor her red-faced, panting state when she noisily clunked down into her seat, dropping her bag to the side with an audible _thump_ that resonated throughout the classroom. Anna's ears flamed an even brighter shade of crimson when the class tittered and shot her amused glances, hiding their giggles and guffaws behind hands and rolled sleeves.

"So!" Mrs. Gerda said, addressing the class from the front of the room with her hands clasped together, "Today's assignment is going to take the whole class period, and only this class period. I don't want you to work on it at home, and I want the assignment to be handed in to me by the end of class. Your task is to compare six people of your choice—they can be anyone; a classmate, a friend, a celebrity—to a fruit."

Whichever of the nine hells Anna had expected the writing teacher to set upon the class after she had said the dreaded word _assignment,_ it sure as heck was not this.

_...What the fuck kind of exercise is this?_

Judging from the vaguely dismayed looks on her classmates' faces, they were thinking along very similar lines as Anna had been, and still was.

"I'm sorry. But...a _fruit?"_ Kristoff Bjorgman deadpanned from his seat besides Anna, a bushy blond eyebrow raised in a skeptical arch.

"Yes, Kristoff, a fruit," Mrs. Gerda dryly said. "Be sure to explain why you chose the fruit you did, as it correlates with the person you are comparing it to. You have fifty-two minutes. I suggest you begin now." Then, she added, "Use your imagination! It's what this exercise is all about." She looked pointedly at Kristoff while saying this, before turning smartly to her desk and pulling a stack of papers toward her.

The sound of creaking chairs and soft groans tinged with resignation permeated the air. Pencils scratched on paper, erasers stuck in the corners of people's mouths. Anna, in contrast, stared at her empty notebook in despair, and then frantically turned to Kristoff, who was looking equally lost and confused.

"Who are you going to write about?" she whispered, tapping the end of her pencil in an uneven staccato rhythm against the pad of her glaringly blank loose leaf.

Kristoff only made a strangled sound, his mouth slightly opened in dismay.

"I don't know," he croaked. "I suck at this kind of thing. And a _fruit?_ Why do we have to compare a human being to a fucking _fruit?_ I hate fruit!"

Anna was wholeheartedly agreeing with Kristoff's spluttered statement when another whisper registered, "Hey, Anna!"

Anna swiveled around in her chair, staring at Marshall with wide teal eyes. "Yeah? Oh, Marsh—who are you writing about?"

"You know, we just saw Elsa Vinters perform, maybe you could—"

"No, I most certainly will _not!"_ Anna immediately interjected, a little too quickly and way too loudly. Everyone turned to stare at her. Mrs. Gerda looked at her critically and sent her out of the room, but not before she heard Marshmallow snicker quietly to Kristoff:

"I think she's finally undergone a change of heart after yesterday."

"What, about Vinters?" To his everlasting credit, Kristoff sounded skeptical.

"Mhmm, we saw one of her live performances. You know, the one at the city's concert hall?"

"You mean the one that had been shamelessly advertised all of last week, with at least ten flyers being shoved down legitimately every single person who lives in the city's mailbox?"

Marshall rolled his eyes, "Whatever, man."

There was a long pause. Anna slowed her trudge to the door, and consequently was close enough to hear when Marshall offhandedly mentioned, "I'm pretty sure she was drooling when she watched Elsa play."

_...Jesus Christ_—

It was perhaps at that precise moment when Anna realized that her high school and its residents were most certainly out to fuck with her life.

—

Anna got called back into class five minutes later, after standing shock-still in the hallway and having totally suffered through her quarter-life crisis during those few agonizing moments. After her outburst, the whole class had either continued talking, or continued working, or a combination of the two. In the case of Marshall, whom Anna instantly deigned as the worst dumbass of a brother ever and now also had the personality of a dick, he was still grinning at Kristoff:

"...and you know, I think that Elsa'd be a bit like a lychee fruit."

"You realize that you're talking about a world-famous pianist who's pretty infamous for not ever talking about herself, like _ever?"_

"Yeah. I'd think she's a bit prickly on the outside, but beneath the shell she's small and sweet."

"...Are you sure Anna was the one who was drooling over her playing? 'Cause you sound pretty infatuated, if you ask me—"

"Excuse me," Anna indignantly said.

Marshall waggled his eyebrows at her. "Yes?" he asked, drawing out the _s_ sound so he sounded like he was trying to impersonate a snake, and was failing miserably.

"Lychee fruit?" Anna frowned.

"Well, yes," Marshall conversationally said, "I think she's exactly like a lychee fruit. For the reasons I'd stated before—"

Because right now, Anna's been brought back to the snapshot in time where she bumped into the blonde pianist; in hindsight, Elsa Vinters had been all softly spoken words and stammers. Avoiding eye contact, fingers twitching at the ends of her sleeves, that in retrospect she had seemed downright _vulnerable._ And Anna felt a twinge of vague remorse for ever shutting down like she had immediately upon recognizing the famous pianist, based upon some prejudiced misconception of her, personality—and right in front of Elsa, too___—_when clearly the blonde had meant nothing wrong and was simply passing by._  
_

_Waaay to go, Anna, that's what you get for stereotyping._

"Elsa Vinters _cannot_ be a lychee fruit!" Anna spluttered thickly through the haze of her thoughts, her voice rising dramatically without her ever noticing. The class immediately quieted down once more, staring at Anna (again), not that the redhead really noticed this. "I saw her on the street, and it was awkward, and it was an _accident_ that I bumped into her, and fine, I shouldn't have acted that way, and—gods, I _hate_ lychee fruits! Elsa Vinters is a lot better than a lychee fruit!"

There was another long and awkward silence. The class continued to stare at her. Marshall looked as if Christmas had come ten months early. Anna immediately clammed up, her hand drifting up to press against her lips.

"...Um," she weakly laughed, attempting to wave off her utterly inexplicable tirade, her cheeks a bright and flaming red, "sorry! I didn't mean to be—_um_—that loud...? Heh..."

Her face colored some more, if that was even possible. Anna was having her second existential crisis in as many minutes and was now considering ways in which she would be able to melt into the scuffed floors of the classroom and never be seen again by humanity.

As if sensing Anna's absolute mortification, Mrs. Gerda took pity on her, tapped her on the shoulder, and sent her out the room again.

—

The Elsa Vinters in question, while melodrama was unfolding in Evigvinter High's first-period Writing class, was steadily eating her way through an extraordinarily delicious breakfast sandwich, studying the score of Liszt's Transcendental Étude No. 8 in between bites. Yet, her glassy blue eyes, which had been focused on the same two measures for the past fifteen minutes, completely betrayed the fact her mind wasn't at all on the song.

Elsa couldn't help but let her mind drift back to the strawberry blonde she had already encountered two times in the city, once in the square and the other at her concert. She had seen the girl sitting in the very first row after her performance of the Fantaisie-Impromptu, mouth set in a straight line but eyes shining with poorly concealed wonder. Maybe it was her expression, or maybe it was something else entirely, but the fact remained that it had been nagging at Elsa all morning now, refusing to back down for the better part of her waking hours, and it was driving her insane.

_I've seen her before._

And Elsa couldn't pin down exactly _when_ she had seen the strawberry blonde before, couldn't remember where she had seen her complexion and eyes and simply the way she held herself upon initially bumping into the pianist—awkwardly adorable, a train of words tumbling out of her mouth in a ramble. She had a special _air_ around her, almost, sweet and unique in a sense, that Elsa was sure no one who had ever encountered the girl would be able to forget so easily.___  
_

But clearly, Elsa had been able to forget, yet the memory of the girl still tugged gently at the back of her mind, and Elsa found herself unable to let it go.

She stayed at the piano bench long after her sandwich had been eaten and she'd brushed the crumbs off her fingers, padding slowly to the bathroom to wash her hands and then back again. Brooding over the sparkling white-and-black keys, staring with dazed, slightly unfocused eyes at the page inundated with black notes set stark against the white of the paper, and all the while trying to _remember_ who this girl was. There was a slight feeling of guilt attached to her memory, that much Elsa remembered, however fuzzily—but she didn't know why, and she didn't know where.

It was only when her father stepped into the practice room and dropped a stack of mail onto the tall wooden stool besides the piano, where he normally sat, watching her like a bird of prey, that Elsa drew herself slowly out of her reverie, reaching over to the teetering envelopes and pulling the one placed on the top toward her.

"You have two weeks to make the decision," Father brusquely told her while Elsa frowned at the letter, "notify me when you have decided to accept or not. The application deadline is in a month."

Elsa nodded distantly, running a nail underneath the creases in the back flap of the envelope and gently pulling upwards. The paper make a slight tearing noise when she pulled at it and then dragged the neatly folded, heavy cream-colored stock paper out. Her eyes skipped across the formal black lettering, narrowing imperceptibly as she skimmed across the letter, before she came stumbling to a complete halt over one particular phrase:

_"...would be pleased to offer you a guest faculty position for the upcoming school year at the Arendelle Institute of Performing Arts..."_

They wanted her? To _teach?_

Elsa could already feel the familiar tightening in her chest that always came to her before a concert, before she choked down two hexagonal orange pills down with a swallow of water. She tossed the letter aside where it floated to an almost delicate halt, fluttering on the polished tiles of one of the practice rooms in the Evigvinter Concert Hall, which Elsa's father had expressly booked just for her for the whole week. Pressing her fingers to her temples, she took several deep and calming breaths before her heart rate deigned to settle down to a normal, if slightly harried pace.

Although her father had told her she had a choice, she knew she didn't. Guest faculty positions were extremely hard to come by in AIPA, never mind a permanent professorship at the highly selective music college. To be offered one, with no prior interview, no prior background checking—granted, she was a world-class pianist, so she probably didn't even need that—or any of the fancy admissions criteria Elsa could never make heads nor tails of...it was practically unheard of. No doubt she would be offending someone very important higher up if she declined, and she knew that her father, while a stickler for ferrying her around the world and arranging her performance after performance, contest after contest, would never allow her to pass up what he would undoubtedly deign as an "important learning experience." Sure, she'd have to be preparing for her entrance into the International Tchaikovsky Competition the following June (which she was frankly terrified about), but by that time, classes would be over and her father would tell her to somehow juggle practicing for _that_ as well as this...guest teaching position, whatever she would be expected to do.

_Expected to do._

She sucked in a deep and shuddering breath, holding the air in her lungs until they felt just about to burst, before letting the breath rush out of her in an airy exhale. She wasn't _perfect,_ goddammit. She wasn't some machine who could keep on walking out onto stage, day after day, week after week, bowing and smiling something synthetic before crowds upon crowds of people and playing piano for the sake of entertainment and money. Elsa wasn't good with people and she doubted she ever would be. And frankly, she was getting sick of all these _expectations_ that had been placed upon her since day one of her career—perhaps even before then, too—she just wanted to play piano, without anyone scrutinizing the _way_ she played every note, how much mastery she held over her technical playing and how much personality she could infuse into her music. She wanted to play for the sake of playing—playing pieces that led not up to some all-important competition or concert, but simply for herself and herself alone. Elsa wasn't a selfish person by nature, but she had her own desires, just like any other human on the planet.

Elsa pushed her fingers further into the crown of her head, as if by trying to bruise her forehead she'd be able to leech out all the weariness and worry and _pressure_ placed on her thin shoulders as well.

The letter laid face-down on the floor of the room, invisible yet present, inconsequential yet omnipotent.

Elsa slammed her fingers down onto the piano keys. Discordant notes clashed horribly and immediately began intermingling with each other, spitting fire and flames, filling the air with some monstrous kind of desperate wailing.

The blonde who had produced the god-awful noise buried her head in her hands and let out a muffled scream.

—

By fifth period, Anna was found in a darkened Astrophysics classroom with her head lolling dangerously close to the table beneath her, her eyelids slipping shut on the own accord and her head jerking up and down like a puppet as the redhead tried in vain to stay awake through Ms. Ambrose's lecture on apparent and absolute magnitude, whatever the hell those were. Anna was pretty sure it had something to do with how bright a star was, but ask her the difference between _apparent_ and _absolute_ and she'd only give a blank stare as a response.

The teacher ended the class with giving her hapless students another load of homework, and Anna was getting alarmed by this point because she had Calculus and European History before this class and both of her teachers had given her a veritable landslide of homework as well. There was still AP Music Theory—which Anna really didn't mind, but the work could be annoyingly tedious sometimes—and Computer Science and Studio Art left, and it went without saying that Anna had no idea how to code anything beyond some basic HTML and she could draw a mean stick figure, but that was about it.

Still, she cautiously approached Ms. Ambrose's desk after the bell had rung and the rest of the class was slowly trickling out into the hallways, swallowed up by the incoming tide of hungry students stampeding their way to the cafeteria for questionable food that was called lunch, provided by the school.

"Um, Ms. Ambrose—?"

"Yes, Anna," and she cut in the middle of Anna's stuttering sentence, her watery blue eyes fixated upon Anna's slightly embarrassed expression. Shuffling a few papers in her hands, she continued bluntly, "Your academic average in this class leaves much to be desired."

Anna winced. "Yeah, uh, about that...I was kind of wondering if I could...um...maybe do a little extra credit work?" _To somehow find a way to boost my average up twenty-eight points by the end of the year, which is absolutely impossible and oh gods I'm going to fail this class and I won't be able to attend AIPA and, holy fuck, how big is that packet she's taking out from her desk drawer—?_

Indeed, Ms. Ambrose had reached into the dusty bowels of her desk and pulled out a thick packet of worksheets that had to be at least two thousand pages long, setting it down with a very loud and very audible thump. Anna took one look at the diagram on the first page, something with a sun in the center and two earths on either side of it and a bunch of dotted ellipses orbiting around the aforementioned sun, or _something,_ she couldn't even comprehend the dense wall of text that had been placed in front of her spinning eyes.

"I suggest that you read through this whole packet by next Friday," Ms. Ambrose suggested softly, lacing her fingers together right underneath her chin, so she looked like the perfect picture of a serene and supremely unconcerned teacher figure. "And complete all the questions, as well—trust me, they will help."

"Wh-wha—?" Anna stammered in disbelief, flipping through the packet in a panic. Equations and scientific terms and problems flashed, ephemeral, before her eyes, and the strawberry blonde could already feel the headache coming along. "All of this? By next _Friday?!"_

"Yes, these are condensed versions of my lectures," Ms. Ambrose dryly said, "you can refer back to your notes if you want for some of the terms."

Anna mumbled something about not having any, and the brown-haired teacher responded, "Then you may want to ask one of your classmates who has bothered to take notes in class to lend them to you."

Anna weighed the packet in her right hand and looked up, her face half-horrified and the other half confused. "You want me to do this two-thousand-page packet—"

"One-hundred-sixty-four pages."

"—yeah, that—by next _Friday?!"_

The teacher looked at Anna over her steepled fingers, "Well, yes, considering that you have your quarterly exam coming up the Monday after I expect you to be complete with this work. If you complete it, Anna, and achieve at least an eighty-five on the entirety packet, I will be sure to count your work as two quiz grades. Does that sound fair?"

If Anna weren't at her wit's end and absolutely desperate by this point, she'd have said no, because goddamn—she didn't have _time_ to look through one-hundred-and-sixty-four pages of useless shit about the trajectory of incoming asteroids and Einstein's constant and the Second Law of Thermodynamics and how exactly it disproved the existence of theoretical white holes—but Anna _had_ to pull her average up, she knew it.

Which was how she ended up staggering down the hall leading from the library, three massive astronomy textbooks teetering in the circle of her arms and the extra credit packet Ambrose had given Anna to complete shifting dangerously on the surface of the top-most coursebook. She all but careened into the cafeteria, drawing more than a few odd looks from passerby, and collapsing down into a chair at the table Kristoff was currently occupied at, idly scrawling a sketch in his sketchbook. He glanced up when the loud thump registered, eyes widening in surprise and maybe a slight hint of trepidation when he saw the mountainous stack of soporific words sitting prominently on the table, with Anna panting behind it. Her eyes were gleaming with desperation and a slight, manic glint that unnerved the burly blond student.

"...Um, Anna..._what_ are you doing with that many coursebooks?"

"Extra credit," she groaned, pulling Kristoff's untouched tray of food toward her and methodically chomping on the soggy fish sticks, only grimacing slightly when the dry fish hit the back of her throat. Then she gazed at him, a breaded stick hanging limply from her fingers, eyes pleading and gleaming with panic—"Please tell me you know something about astrophysics."

"If I were interested," Kristoff wryly said, sketching a few more strokes onto his drawing, "I would have taken the class. But...man, that thing is _huge."_

_"One-hundred-sixty-four pages,"_ Anna whispered, shaking the thick packet spasmodically into his face. "By next fucking Friday! _A hundred and sixty four pages!_ How the fuck am I supposed to do this, I ask you?!"

"Well, you could always ask Marshall for help..."

For all his oddities, Marshall was an absolute science whiz. In fact, he excelled in every subject his sister was mediocre or failed at, but he wasn't that much for playing a musical instrument.

Anna, still slightly peeved over the whole fiasco involving lychee fruits and Elsa Vinters during first period today, stubbornly said, _"No."_

"Ah, Anna, he's probably like the only kid in the school who actually _understands_ this shit. You're lucky to have him as your brother."

"Kristoff!" she shrieked, swatting him across the arm.

"What?" the blond grumbled, rubbing self-consciously at his stinging flesh. "It's true! You gotta admit, the marshmallow knows his stuff."

Anna only grumbled under her breath and bit aggressively into another fish stick.

* * *

**End Notes** / Eghh, I hate this chapter -.- But it's three in the morning and I've got three consecutive two-hour lectures to sit through tomorrow (...well, today...) and I spent two weeks plodding at a snail-like speed through this shit and _yeah_ _I'm a lazy ass so here ya go, throwing this out to the wolves._ So more of a humorous (I hope) filler chapter than anything, but I promise you it contains value for the upcoming one, which is a lot less...meaningless. :P Hopefully, I will be able to update more consistently...assuming that the camp I will be going to in two weeks has Wi-Fi or not. Then I'm sure I can update every other day starting from then, for at least three weeks. If not, things will remain fairly few and far in between. -.-


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